Mason Bates certainly divides opinion. Named the most-performed composer of his generation (and Musical America’s 2018 Composer of the Year), The New York Times, on the other hand, recently mocked his “blandly affable forced marriages of rave-style electronic beats and Bernstein-style orchestral lushness”. His opera about Steve Jobs – Apple founder, aesthetical obsessive and all-round control freak – was therefore bound to excite controversy. But don’t believe a prominent handful of venomous reviews that smack of pre-conceived bias against a composer who dares to be accessible and – worse still – popular. The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs may not be perfect, but it does feature compelling music in the service of good drama.

If Danny Boyles’s...